


You're The One I Want To Go Through Time With

by ej_writer



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - No Upside Down, Billy Lives With His Mother, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Harringrove Week of Love 2021, M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Canon, steve moves to california
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29307240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ej_writer/pseuds/ej_writer
Summary: Steve is kicked out at 15, and goes to California to live with his aunt. They share a duplex with a 14 year old Billy Hargrove and his mother.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 17
Kudos: 65
Collections: Harringrove Week of Love





	You're The One I Want To Go Through Time With

**Author's Note:**

> Day one of HWOL is finally here!! So excited to share all I’ve written! For today I chose the prompt Neighbors AU!!! This is rushed and messy as all heck but, here y’all are anyways! You can read this on tumblr as well, I’m @thehairingrove over there!! Hope y’all like it!!

It finally happens when he’s 15 years old. It’s not like he hasn’t seen it coming, but Steve gets kicked out.

In the very beginning of a particularly brutal Hawkins summer, he had decided to invite Tommy over to smoke weed in the pool house. He thought nothing of it, but the neighbors complained about the smell, and, coupled with every other act of his deemed irresponsible, immature, disgraceful, by his stuck-up parents, a couple of blunts was apparently the last straw.

They tell him the Harringtons had a reputation, an air of elegance and respect they had to upkeep, so they couldn’t just let him bring drugs onto their property. He thought it was ridiculous, considering that they were allowed as much wine aging in the cellar and expensive whiskey propped up on a hutch as they wanted, but when he’d brought it up he’d gotten nothing but a stern look.

They’d been through this a thousand times over, how worthless and terrible a son he could be, grounding him for bringing too many girls home, taking his car away when he failed a class, so he knew to expect a punishment.

This is obviously the next step, the throwing him out on the street thing, for years he could feel the neglect and tension starting to build up and boil over. Sometimes, they’d even hang threats of it over his head, so now that was told he had to be out of the mansion by the end of next week or there would be consequences, it couldn’t be too much of a shocker.

Though at some point, he’s got to wonder if they ever really thought as far ahead as consequences, or if they just knew they trained their boy well enough that it never got that far. If only he had more of a spine.

Now, as unsurprising as the scenario may be, Steve was still absolutely in no way, by any means ready to be thrown out on the streets before he even had his driver’s license.

In the case of emergency, like the time Stephen Sr. got just a little too rough and popped his wrist out of place, or when they’d left him alone for a month at age 9 and he went three days without food because he didn’t know how to turn the stove on, he had his aunt, the thankfully much more compassionate counterpart to his mother, who lived over in California.

The minute they’re gone, having passive aggressively hurried off somewhere, probably the country club or something, to complain about how disappointing their son was with their rich friends, Steve grabs a suitcase from the closet and gives his Aunt Margaret a call.

Before he knows it she’s got him a flight booked, a written agreement from her sister that proved taking him in was legal, and a set of luggage. Three days later, he was flying first class towards the rest of his life.

~~~~~~~

Touching down in San Francisco has got to be the most surreal thing he’s ever done.

He’d never even left the Midwest before, his farthest ventures being into the three states surrounding his home state, so to be charted off to the west coast? It’s an experience alright.

Aunt Margaret is there waiting for him, her jet black permed hair a few inches above the rest, her brown eyes sparkling with the kindest smile he’s ever seen as she runs up to hug him.

She takes all of his bags, swatting his hands away when he tries to carry even one, and makes him sit in the car while she shoves it all into the trunk.

He wasn’t used to not being the help, since that’s all his parents ever really saw him as anyways, only valuable as their son if they got something out of the time they spent with him. It’s got him feeling weird the whole drive back to the Margos apartment, like he’s in some alternate reality where people are nice to him for a change.

She lives in one of those shared places, a duplex where the house is divided into two halves for two different renters, the very kind his mother would’ve turned her nose up at despite having been raised in one herself. Margaret told him there was a mother and son who lived in the other half, but they’re quiet enough, and polite.

Just pulling up outside of the house, Steve already knows it’s everything he’s ever wanted.

The house itself, painted a pale shade of peeling yellow and missing the majority of the shingles off of the roof, is actually a reasonable size, a direct contrast to the mansion he grew up in, fit for a dozen but occupied by one most days.

Brutal summer heat has dried up the lawn and the garden so they aren’t perfectly tailored, not trimmed by underpaid staff or watered by automatic sprinklers. All across it there’s a scattering of ornaments, like colorful pinwheels in the front garden, and plastic flamingos standing guard by the mailbox.

There’s even a rickety old fence, all mossy and broken up to mark the edges of their property, so different from the white vinyl fence in his backyard at his parents house.

It would seem too that the garage was only big enough for one car, not three like he was used to, and that the makeshift gravel driveway leading up to it was at max capacity with only his aunts Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais, and a dinged up old Karmann Ghia the same color as the house parked in it.

Basically, there were none of the telltale signs that a neglected rich boy lived there, and from that alone he already knew he belonged here.

His aunt hurries him into their section of the house, theirs is the right side, so he can get to resting off the jet lag before he starts unpacking, but he’s far too distracted taking everything in to worry about being a little drowsy.

The rooms are small and the ceilings are low. Where there would’ve been beige and white and other sophisticated tones, there was a rainbow of colors in Margos apartment, from the curtains to the carpet, the Afghan on the back of the couch to the little trinkets in the entertainment center and windowsills.

He notices that, to accommodate for the heavy summer heat, there was a fan spinning in the corner, and all the windows were left wide open. His parents had the windows painted shut back home.

It might’ve been overwhelming, being thrown into a place like this so suddenly, but in his heart he knows this was what he was made for: a cozy life with someone who treated him with the bare minimum of respect.

~~~~~~~

Eventually Steve does fall asleep, the switch from Eastern Standard to Pacific time just being too great for his body. He doesn’t really mean to, he thought he’d just lay down for a minute while he was putting his clothes away in his new dresser, but he ends up sleeping until it’s almost dark out.

He goes looking for Margo when he realizes the house is empty, an irrational pit of dread growing in his chest at the familiarity of being alone, and finds her out back.

The yard also seems to be shared with the other house, a wispy line of barely showing through grass separating the two where a divider had once been, but had since been ripped up.

His aunt is with another woman, a blonde lady who he assumed was from the next door apartment, were sitting in mismatched lawn chairs, cigarettes glowing as the sun got lower and lower in the sky.

Margaret beckons him over once she notices him, and shows him off to the woman. It’s not at all like his mother would’ve done it, none of the flaunting him to make a good impression. This is more like her wanting to introduce him because she genuinely cares.

In a way, it almost makes Steve more uneasy. He could handle all the fake stuff with only the slightest hint of discomfort at being gawked at, because most of the time he’d never have to see those people again, but this was astronomically different.

“Maria, this is my nephew Steve.” Deep blue eyes seem to take him in, accompanied by a polite smile that makes his stomach drop for no good reason.

He panics, shifts into the role of the perfect little socialite he’d been working on his whole life. Without thinking, he extends his hand for her to and produces the generic response his mother’d trained into him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Ms..”

She takes his hand, but looks a little surprised about doing it. “Hargrove. But we don’t have to do formalities.”

“Right.” It feels awkward to Steve, but judging from the laid back attitude of the women, it’s not a universal sentiment. That only makes it more embarrassing, to be the only one bothered by it.

His aunt leans back in her chair, tapping the ash of the end of her cigarette and tells him, “Go ahead and grab a chair Stevie.”

He straightens his back out and scans the yard, expecting a chair to already be propped open somewhere. The confusion must be apparent on his face when he finds nothing but grass and more grass, because his aunt specifies, “By the shed, kiddo.”

His parents always told him they weren’t allowed to have lawn furniture except the pool chairs cemented to the ground, because they said it didn’t fit the lifestyle they tried to lead. Even the concept of a shed would’ve been insulting to their tastes.

He's done enough growing up to know now that they were just afraid to look too much like they were people who lived in rural Indiana instead of in true big city luxury. They couldn’t risk seeming too much like they weren’t in the upper middle, it would be a disgrace.

The contrast between that and just sitting out there and not having his guard up is so, grounding. Not having anything at all to do but just, sit and appreciate instead of performing and worrying, it’s a lot to take in at once.

He was so nervous the whole way up, even though it was his aunt and he already knew she was nice, that they wouldn’t get along, since that’s the way things always were with his own mum, and lord knows he hardly ever even spoke to his father.

But it’s really not tense at all, actually, it’s sort of the opposite. For once in his life he feels free of expectations, and takes the moment to just exist. Ruthie and Stephen Sr. had long ago made sure that was a concept he could barely understand.

It’s not too long after that that the screen door to Maria’s side of the house swings open, scaring Steve so bad he almost tips his chair over as he startles.

There’s a boy who he’s guessing is about his age leaning out the door, but from the distance he’s at and with how dark it’s getting, Steve doesn’t see much else about him. “M back momma.”

“Okay baby.” The screen door clicks shut again in the next moment, and Maria offers Steve an apologetic smile “You’ve gotta excuse my Billy. He’s not too good with other kids.”

“No, it’s alright.” He assures her, like a polite social butterfly should.

Maria goes in a little while after that, and Margaret and Steve follow suit, since the sun’s almost all the way down.

But Steve’s curious now. He wants to know more about the boy, Billy, he thinks was what Maria called him. It’s only right to wonder, being that they’re neighbors now and all.

It gets brought up later that night, when they’re watching TV on the couch, a thrifted, feather stuffed thing he thought was simultaneously the most hideous and most comfortable thing he’d ever sat on.

“I didn’t know you had neighbors.” He’d been trying to work himself up to talking about it, sitting in the corner of the couch in a little ball and picking at his nails as he worked up his courage.

It was funny, being so nervous over casual conversation, but he guesses he could blame his parents for that one.

His own mum wouldn’t have even paid him any mind, at most pretending to listen while her eyes stayed trained to the television or magazine or coworker in front of her and hummed a non committal response, but Margo turns her whole body on the couch to face him while she answers him, with a complete sentence even. “Oh, people used to come and go all the time over there.”

“How long have they been here? Maria and her son?”

She thinks for a moment, a little surprised at her nephew's interest in the topic of their neighbors. “I don’t know, probably about a year or so now.”

“What’re they like?” He comes across as maybe a little too eager, and his aunt notices.

“What’s got you so curious?” There’s a teasing bit of reprimanding in her tone, just enough to suggest that she knows he’s being a nib-nose, but doesn’t mind it.

And he feels himself flush, because he is being nosy. To try to save face just a little, he comes up with an excuse that isn’t quite a lie. “Nothin’, just knew all my neighbors back in Hawkins, I guess.”

But she wasn’t upset with him, it wasn’t her intention to get him to shut up, like it would’ve been had he heard the same thing from one Ruthie Harrington, so she answers that question too. “I don’t know, they’re nice, sort of reserved, but I’ve never had any problems with them.”

Steve nods and lets it go, but he wants more than that. Truthfully he did know everyone back home pretty well, growing up in a small town meant he was pretty much guaranteed to, so he makes it his goal to get to know his new neighbors that way, if not just a little better.

~~~~~~

The two boys are properly introduced for the first time the next morning, when Steve goes out to fetch the mail for Margret. It feels like the least he can do for bumming off of his aunt.

Stepping out on the porch just shy of 8 in the morning and not seeing dewey grass, or the early sunshine muted behind rolling fog and dreary clouds is something he’s going to have to get used to.

Summers in Hawkins were always muggy, full of thunderstorms and unpredictably dreary days. San Francisco is so bright, so different, and such a relief.

While Steve basks in it, the already warm breeze and the sun shining bright, the neighbors’ door opens up and Billy comes out to do the same, standing on his tip-toes to reach up into the mailbox beside the door, holding a traveler's mug of coffee in the opposite hand.

When he turns around to go back inside, Steve, staying true to wanting to get to know the other boy better, has taken a few steps closer, and has extended a hand for Billy to shake, the same sort of introduction panic he’d felt last night.

But, Billy, seeing that his hands are a bit preoccupied by a stack of bills and a cup of coffee, just offers a sheepish smile.

Steve settles for a formal introduction without a handshake, though it’s still too stiff an interaction to really get to know him beyond the awkward new rich kid in town. “Hi. My name is Steve Harrington. I’m uh, I'm your new neighbor.”

“Pleasure to meet you Steve Harrington. M’Billy” They stand there, neither of them making any move to do anything but just look at one another. Billy clears his throat and shakes the coffee cup towards Steve, sensing that maybe this was the place for hospitality. “You want some? My momma always makes too much.”

“No thanks. I’m uh, allergic to coffee beans.”

“Huh.” He seems amused by that, scrunches his nose up like he doesn’t believe it, and Steve wants to curl up and disappear. “I’ll see you later then, Steve Harrington.”

He watches the other boy turn back to leave after that, and still sort of just stands there before his brain comes back on and he realizes he should say something in return. “Right, uh, bye.”

It’s just a moment's passing, but Steve can’t get the interaction out of his head.

He chalks it up to being nervous that his new neighbors won’t like him, the fear that Aunt Margo will send him back to his parents if he can’t get along here, and that makes logical sense, except, what he’s caught up on is Billy’s crooked smile, and his blond curls that lay just past his ears, messy from just waking up and bleached from the sun, and the spatter of dark freckles across his nose.

First full day in California and he has a crush on the neighbor kid. He can’t believe himself.

There isn’t very much time to mull that fact over though, because, over breakfast, what his aunt calls her ‘special occasion breakfast’ of cinnamon rolls with ice cream, she tells him she’s going to do some errands today.

And that’s alright, he tells her he’ll be fine all by himself, and he is, for the first few hours, but the more time she’s gone, the worse and worse he starts to feel. It’s that worry again, that deep rooted fear that he’ll be left alone forever.

Experience has taught him to try to calm himself down, to catch his breath and try to focus on the fact that he knows he’s being irrational, but those techniques don’t cut it, as they often don’t, and he’s sending himself further into a panic attack trying to think too hard about it

Sitting inside, he gets stir crazy, feels suffocated by everything that had before been inviting to him, so he goes for some fresh air out front. Watching the road for so long, just waiting for the Oldsmobile to pull up, he starts to feel antsy again, so he goes out back where it’s quiet instead.

There’s a glider on the porch back there, an old rusty thing that squeaked every time Steve rocked it forward or back, but the calming motion of it is probably the only thing keeping him from spiraling too far.

He doesn’t really know what time it is anymore, only that he’s hungry, and that the sun’s going down, and that he’s been sort of zoned out back there for a long while. He feels hot and cold at the same time, and he’s lost in his head.

The sound of a screen door gently tapping against the side of the house brings his eyes up from the spot on the ground he’d been staring at with tears in his eyes, but it isn’t his aunt Margaret coming home, it’s just Billy.

With his hands stuffed in his pockets, leaning against the wall between the back doors, he says real quiet like, “Momma told me to ask if you wanted some of the dinner she made.”

He shrugs. “I’m alright.”

“I figured.” Billy looks at the floor while he tries to figure out how he wants to approach this. For a long moment, neither of them say a word, no sound between them but distant field crickets, until Billy asks, his voice quiet enough it barely registers in Steve’s mind. “You okay?”

If he’s being entirely honest, Steve doesn’t really know if he’s okay. He trusted his aunt enough to move all the way across the country with her, and yet he can’t manage enough trust to believe her when she said she’d come home from some errands? Doesn’t sound too okay to him.

But he’s not in Hawkins, he’s away from the people he knows for sure wouldn’t be coming back for him unless it was to pull something like they had and treat him like garbage. So in a way, he guesses he’s better than ever.

Unable to think of any words that might convey what he’s thinking, Steve just shrugs again, but Billy seems to get it. He sits down next to Steve on the glider and plants his feet so it won’t move, and so Steve’s attention will be on him.

Knowing he’s got Steve’s focus, since he looks over at him with glossy eyes, Billy tries to reassure him, “Your aunt’s a good lady. She wouldn’t leave you.”

“Who said I thought she would?” It sounds pathetic, wet and stuffy with the remnants of tears he hadn’t known were falling, but there’s a vulnerability he couldn’t hide behind even the toughest of masks that reveals he isn’t being honest.

“The way you watched for her car said enough.” It makes Steve feel exposed, having a total stranger see right through him, but Billy explains himself. “When my momma went out looking for this place, I was sure I’d never see her again.”

“Why did you guys move here?” If he was going to psychoanalyze Steve, he felt it was only fair to ask Billy a pressing question back.

“I’ll tell you if you tell me.” He deflects it back onto Steve in a way that might’ve seemed cocky, but it's obvious he’s just trying to avoid the question.

Steve won’t let him win this one though, maybe just to save his own ego, or pretend like he hadn’t been caught crying by someone he met that morning, or maybe it was just because he had asked first, but he wants Billy to answer, so he tells him, with the slightest hint of a bashful smile playing at his lips, “You first.”

“Stubborn.” He cracks a smile back though, and goes ahead and goes first at the other boys insistence. “My dad’s a real nasty s.o.b. Would get drunk and mean for no good reason, so momma took me and we high-tailed it before he did anything too drastic.”

He didn’t know what he was expecting, why he even felt like it was any of his business, and he doesn’t know what he should say to that.

For lack of a better response, he gives his own little life story summary. “My parents were rich. They didn’t want me, so they have the time of day for me. No matter what I did they punished me for it, grounded me, hit me, sent me to Christian school, until they just got sick of me, I guess.”

“That sounds pretty shitty.” Billy offered. 

“Yeah, yours too.” 

After a while, Billy, sounding for a moment like he’s a lot wiser than any 14 year old has the right to be, says “What matters is we’re here now.” 

Steve feels so touched hearing that. It was so simple a thing for the other boy to say, but coming from Billy after he’d just shared what he did, it means a lot more than just basic condolences.

Hardly anybody had ever been that genuine in anything they said to him. Steve can hardly force a response out of his shocked mouth. As he looks over at Billy’s face, still turned up towards the sky, he sees all that meaning there illuminated by the stars, and he's able to mutter a breathless, “Yeah.” in response.

They both jump when the door flies open, and aunt Margo comes running over to Steve. Frantically she explains that she’d been trying to make sure everything was legal, only to find that some of Steve’s papers were missing, and they had to try to track them all down and get some of them faxed, and it ended up taking way longer than expected.

It feels nice to be understood. Just a few years ago his parents left for what was supposed to be a three day trip to Indianapolis, only they didn’t come back for what was almost two months. Once they were home they didn’t even mention it, just continued going about their business as usual until it was time to leave again. His aunt taking the effort to explain herself was already a vast improvement from that.

He lets her pull him into a big hug, accepts her apology as the air is squeezed out of his lungs, and when he pulls away from her, Billy’s gone.

~~~~~~~

After that night, Steve’s not really expecting them to get very far in the friendship department, since literally their first meaningful interaction was Billy talking him down from a breakdown, but he’s surprised when Billy starts becoming part of his everyday life.

When Maria goes off to work at some diner in town during the week, Billy starts coming over a whole lot. He says he doesn’t have anything else to do by himself all day, so he comes to hang out with Steve, who also finds himself without much to do after the initial adjustment period to the move is over.

Sharing a house is basically just a guarantee for always having a buddy around, and they take full advantage of it.

There isn’t particularly a whole lot for them to get into around the neighborhood, all the kids on the block are either too young or too old to hang around with, so they spend a lot of their time down at the boardwalk.

It’s something Steve definitely isn’t used to, because the only beach town he’d ever even been to was a dinky little tourist trap in Pennsylvania on Lake Erie, and in it was nothing like a San Fran beach.

Just the concept of something like a boardwalk was strange to him, but he supposes it’s sort of like the West Coast equivalent of going downtown to hang out with his friends back in Hawkins.

Without much else to do though, that little strip just a few blocks away from their home becomes their absolute favorite place to go.

Sometimes they would go into the little arcade facing the beach, but they wasted so many quarters there they decided to make that a biweekly thing.

Other days, when the sun was real nice and warm, they’d go down on the sand. They almost never went in the water though, Steve was embarrassed to admit he didn’t exactly know how to swim, despite having grown up with a pool in his backyard, but Billy didn’t care.

He liked to just walk along the water's edge and find little shells and critters and pretty rocks, and staying out of the water meant he could pick up pieces of sea glass to give to his mom. Something he thought was funny was that Steve called it beach glass instead, another of the many weird Midwesterner things he said.

Their favorite spot of all was the Italian ice place. Out back there was a patio covered in plastic picnic tables that looked over the beach and always caught the nicest breeze, and they made that their spot.

Steve always ordered his with custard on top like how he got it back home, but Billy hated it that way. They both agree though, that cherry is the best flavor, Steve’s own preference coming from the fact that he was allergic to blue food dye present in most other flavors, and Billy’s from his hatred of all things sour. It makes for the perfect middle ground.

There’s one day in particular that Billy comes over when Steve’s already busy. Him and his aunt are knee deep into rearranging the living room, and he doesn’t want to leave her to do all the work by herself.

He’s in the middle of dragging the entertainment center across the room when Billy knocks, and Steve has to climb over all kinds of turned over furniture to get to the door.

He doesn’t quite notice the way Billy’s breath catches in his throat at the sight of him with his hair all mussed up and wearing short shorts. “Hey, Billy.”

He seems a little flustered, but he straightens himself up and asks, “Do you maybe wanna go down to Rita’s today?”

“Lemme check with Margo real fast.”

Without him even having to go back inside she calls from the living room, “Oh, don’t you worry about it, Stevie. You boys go have fun!”

As he closes the front door, he thinks about going back inside and changing, about how his parents would’ve killed him for going out looking the way he does, with his hair pulled back in a headband and his shirt a little sweat stained from moving furniture all morning, but his parents aren’t here.

This is sunny California, he’s not putting khakis on to go to the beach with Billy.

It’s a hot one that day, the sun beating down on them a little more intense than Steve had gotten used to in the short time he’d been in the Golden State, but it’s always nicer down by the water.

There’s umbrellas in the center of each table at the Italian ice place too, which casts a shade over them and helps a lot, but Steve’s still burning up. The heatwave is definitely to blame, but there’s something too about the way Billy's knee bumps up against his when he sits down at the table with their cherry ices.

Something that sends Steve’s heart up into his throat, and makes him flush up to his ears. He’s already pink-cheeked from the high, high humidity and yesterday’s sunburn, so he hopes it’s subtle enough.

He’s trying to watch Billy’s face for a sign that he’s flustered too, but he gets too caught up in taking in every last detail of him for what must be the thousandth time that he fails to notice a seagull swooping a little too close for comfort.

It’s not his proudest moment, ducking away from a harmless bird that was barely even close to him, and Cali raised Billy isn’t one to let that slide.

Steve doesn’t know if it was the killer bird or Billy's laugh, with his smile and that little bit of his tongue that pokes out from between his teeth all stained red with cherry syrup, but his heart feels like it could explode.

“S’just a seagull.” He spooned a mouthful of cherry ice into his mouth when he wasn’t talking. “Didn’t they have birds in Indiana?”

“Yeah, but none of them ever tried to kill me.” He snaps at him, but without malice, just pure defensive embarrassment.

Billy laughs at him again. “Aww, I’ll protect you from the big bad seagulls, Stevie.”

It’s ridiculous, but Billy being so cheeky’s got Steve feeling some type of way, like, wanting to press a kiss to the corner of that shit eating grin kind of way.

They go about the rest of their usual route, down the far side of the beach, past the shops and back home through town, but the whole way Steve can’t stop thinking about how he felt at the Italian ice place.

Can’t stop thinking about how Billy looked like he was glowing in the afternoon sun, and the way his hair was blowing in the breeze coming off the water.   
  
He doesn’t know when he started thinking about Billy that way, all he knows is that he is, without a doubt, in over his head. 

~~~~~~

When he gets home, Steve’s a little tired from wandering around all day, and a lot flustered.

There’s butterflies fluttering around in his stomach and a giddy feeling he just can’t shake. That morning, he’d left the house with a mild case of the pitapats, but after today, this could be classified as full on puppy-love.

He makes no effort to move away from the front door as he shuts it behind himself, sort of just staring dreamily into the room.

Margaret, having finished the living room without him, looks up from the book she was reading when he comes in and notices that goofy look on his face right away. That knowing smile appears on her own expression again, like she knew this would happen. “How did it go?”

“It was cool.” He shrugs her off, even though he feels like he’s freaking out under the surface.

“Yeah? What’d you do?” 

“Just hung out around the pier I guess.” 

“Good. Did you have fun?” She gets a nod in response and thinks that’s the end of it, slides her reading glasses back down her nose and returns her attention to the book in her lap, but Steve’s still sort of awkwardly hovering by the door, so she sets her book on the coffee table and her glasses too, and pats the couch cushion beside her. “Come here sweetie. What’s on your mind?”

“What does it feel like to be in love?” He hadn’t meant to just blurt it out like that, but he couldn’t take it back once it was out there.

“Why? Do you think you’re in love?” 

“I don’t know.” And really, he didn’t. The way he felt about Billy wasn’t like other crushes he had in the past, but he didn’t know that that necessarily made it love. Maybe he was just that cool.

“It’s been a while, but I think I can give you the gist of it.” She thinks carefully about how she’ll chose her words, to make sure she gives the right impression. “Being in love is like, when you can’t imagine yourself without your other half.”

Steve knew what love was, he wasn’t a dork, he just didn’t know how to identify if he was feeling it. “But what does that mean?”

“Well, if you wonder what you’d be doing if they weren’t in your life, if you never want to be apart from them, that sort of thing.” As he thinks over what she’s saying, she watches his face for a hint that she’s getting it right, telling him what he needed to hear. “Does that sound familiar?”

“Yeah, I guess, but, how do I know we’re not just supposed to be friends?”

“You’ll know the difference.” She rests her hand on top of his as she changes the topic to something even more serious. “Just, please promise me you’ll be careful?”

He offers her a weak little smile as comfort. “I promise.”

Margaret whole-heartedly worries for Steve, she really does. She's concerned about whether the contrast between the folks in California versus his home in the Midwest had taught him to be too unafraid. That maybe he’s been misled to believe that a progressive area means he’s safe doing whatever he wants.

But she knows to trust her nephew too. After what he’s been through, he’s mature enough to know how to keep himself safe. Her and Maria would just have to pay a little closer attention to the boys’ surroundings than they were going to.  
  


Just on the other side of the wall, the same sort of scenario goes down when Maria gets home.

She shrugs her bag off of her shoulder at the door, and steps into the living room to find her son waiting for her on the edge of his seat, with the brightest smile imaginable on his face.

He tended to get like that when something he thought was important happened, getting real excited to share his day with her now that he could. Every time she saw him like that, she felt guilty thinking of how long he was deprived of that part of his personality because of her husband.

While she’s putting her things away, she engages him first. “What’s got you so giddy, tiger?”

“I took Steve on a date!” It came out like he’d been waiting all day to say that, and she knew he probably had. 

“Really? That’s good!” Now, she knows her Billy. That only meant he wanted it to be a date, not that it actually was one, but she felt no need to correct him on that. If her baby was happy, she didn’t care what he had to tell himself to get there.

“Uh-huh. ” He’s beaming with pride, and while his mother would love to hear every detail of what happened, she just got back from work and it was getting late, and there were chores that needed doing. 

“Alright, B. Come help me with dinner.” She ruffles his hair as he shuffles past her to the sink to wash his hands, but she stays where she is in the doorway of the kitchen. 

There are so many things she wants to explain to her boy, but she’s scared to crush his spirit. His father had done quite a number on his confidence by forcing the real Billy down under the surface, and in the short time since they’d left him she’d fought so hard to help her son get back what he lost to their abuser.

It was a fragile line to walk, not knowing whether to give him advice that would make him worry, or to let him go on his own and run the risk of the outside world doing it for her.

But now isn’t the time and she knows it, so she joins him at the sink, and gives him the most proud smile she can.

~~~~~~~

Sometimes, Billy didn’t always have too much of a choice when he came over.

The first time it happens, Steve doesn’t know what’s going on, just that Margo came inside from having a smoke, her last before she went off to bed, with a shaken up looking Billy tailing behind her. She walks him over to Steve, tells him to watch out for the other boy, and goes back outside with the sternest look on her face.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks him, a little bit of both confusion and fear present in his tone once his aunt is back outside.

His voice trembled as he admitted to Steve, “S’my dad.”

Apparently on the odd day, Neil Hargrove would get drunk and come a-knocking on his ex wife’s door, demanding the right to see his son. But he’d lost that right in a court of law when they found sufficient evidence of abuse in the home that allowed Maria to take Billy away. Apparently too, every time his old man was reminded of that, he’d end up getting aggressive.

From the living room they can hear the argument clearly, the slurring voice of a man shouting over Maria’s level tone only slightly muffled by thin walls, so Steve takes Billy to his room where it’s a little more peaceful.

He makes sure to look Billy in the eye when he locks the door and pulls the curtains over his window shut, hoping that might offer him some sense of security. One time he remembers his mom locking him in the walk-in closet because his dad had a little too much whiskey and was angry about a failed investment. He thinks this is sort of like that.

There’s not much else Steve can do but wait it out with him, so he sits next to Billy on his bed.

Something makes a loud noise from outside, if Steve had to guess he’d say it was probably Neil’s fist against the wall, and Billy spooks real bad, the color draining out of his face and tears welling up in his pretty blue eyes.

But Steve wants those eyes on him, wants Billy to have something other than his dad to think about, so, without thinking too hard about it, he grabs Billy's hand. Laces their fingers together and squeezes to let him know he’s still there, to beg him to please not cry.

With eyes as wide as saucers Billy looks down at where their hands are met, then back up at Steve.

He offers Billy a little smile, and despite the tear tracks on his flushed face, Billy makes the effort to return it. “You’re okay Billy.”

He doesn’t get a verbal response, but Billy sort of leans into his side and squeezes his hand back. That’s enough to know he would really be okay.

Finally, after what felt like hours and hours, they hear a car door slam hard and an engine veer off, followed by the unmistakable sound of the house across the street's mailbox being hit on its way, and Margo knocks on the door to Steve’s room to let them know it’s safe to come back out. Billy still doesn’t let go of his hand.

Maria goes down to the station to file a police report, again, but Billy doesn’t want to be alone after that, and Steve wouldn’t dream of leaving him.

Margaret uses her spare to let the boys into the Hargrove’s side of the duplex, since they all agree that’s where it’s best for Billy to be while he calms down a little. After that she backs off, exchanging a look with her nephew as though to tell him to come get her if she’s needed, before retreating into her own house to nervously wait up for Maria to get back.

Steve feels a little funny once they’re in Billy’s living room. It’s not like this is the first time he’s been in Billy’s house, or even that they’re not close enough that this should be weird, but it’s just different this time.

It’s getting really late, and after today they’re tired, so maybe the feeling in his chest can be attributed to that, but it feels like something shifted between them.

Almost like, like they’ve been friends for more than the few weeks that Steve had been in San Francisco. Like all of their tense and bad emotions were left at the door for just a little while when they were together. Like they never wanted to be apart again, just as Margaret had said.

Billy went about business as usual, going through some sort of routine like Steve being there was a normal part of his day. He stopped what he was doing at one point to ask Steve, “You spending the night?”

“I can if you want, but I don’t know since your mom’s not home.” It would feel weird to outright say yes, in case he was overstepping his bounds, but then Billy looks disappointed, almost like he’s turning in on himself, and Steve corrects it. “I would really like to though.” 

“Cool.” Billy went into his room, Steve trailing behind like a lost puppy every step of the way until he had the guts to ask, “Um, do you got like, a sleeping bag or something?”

“I don’t think so. I have comforters and stuff though.”

Billy digs under his bed and finds a pile of thick blankets unusable in the summer, and lets Steve spread them out all over his floor as a sort of makeshift bed. 

They didn’t have a whole lot to say, so they head off to sleep fairly quickly after everything’s set up. 

It’s strangely quiet in Billy’s room, in a way that makes it feel tense almost, like there was something that needed to be said into the quiet, but neither were willing to say it.

Steve’s starting to drift off to sleep when the silence is interrupted by Billy whispering. “Steve?”

“Yeah?” 

It takes Billy a second to ask, and Steve almost wonders if he fell asleep before he finally spits it out. “Why don’t you just sleep up here?”

“Okay.” It would be a complete and total lie to say Steve wasn’t considering it himself, asking to sleep in Billy’s bed, but he didn’t want to be a weirdo. As long as Billy asked though, he’d do anything.

He hears Billy move to make room for him, listens to sheets rustle and waits until there’s silence again before swallowing his fear and getting up off the floor.   
  
He’s very deliberate not to touch Billy over on his side of the bed, though it was kind of hard with the both of them in one twin, so he settles on sleeping with only his back touching Billys. 

As soon as he’s comfortable enough to maybe sleep, Steve feels himself starting to overthink things. His brain does that a lot at night when he’s supposed to be sleeping, and right now it’s turning question after question over and over.

Like, why hadn’t Billy just left him to sleep on the floor? Or Did he try to lie about not having a sleeping bag so he could trick Steve into being in his bed? And Did Billy like him?

Clearly Billy is not bothered by the same concerns, because he conks out like, barely even a few minutes after the lights are out, but Steve supposes he deserves that after the day he’s had.  
  
After a lot of effort himself, Steve is eventually able to tune out all of those worries and focus on the sound of Billy breathing softly in and out next to him, until he’s able to fall asleep too.

Neither boy stirs when Maria gets home well after midnight, and peeks her head into the room. Most nights she’d find Billy still up and fighting sleep, acting like he wasn’t tired so he could stay up to be more productive, or spend more time with her after work, and she’d have to try everything to get him to sleep.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that all he needed was someone there with him sometimes, or that she couldn’t be the one to be there for him most nights with work, so it’s such a relief to see her son finally making friends.

~~~~~~

After that night, even though Neil had yet to make another comeback, they made a habit out of sleepovers, especially once Maria’s schedule got switched mostly to night shifts at the diner.

Most of the time they preferred to camp out in Billy's room, since it was a lot more personalized than Steve’s, with things like pictures on his walls and cool glowy stickers on the ceiling above his bed, and it became their little space to just hang out.

Even when they weren’t sleeping they’d sit on the latch hook rug on Billy’s floor and read or play games, or sometimes just not do anything when it was especially hot. It was nice, having a safe place they could be together, because it was everything Steve never had, a real friend and room to grow.

At night it gets a little cramped, two growing boys trying to cram themselves into a twin bed, but it’s better in there than Steve’s room with all of Aunt Margaret’s decorations still up. Sleeping in the waterbed made Billy super queasy anyways, and they didn’t like one or the other having to sleep on the floor.

Occasionally they’d just sort of crash in Steve’s living room on accident. He had the better TV set, and after being out all day the boring shows that ran at night tended to make them drowsy. Billy always fell asleep first in Margos armchair, so Steve would turn out all the lights and go to sleep on the couch himself.

Once or twice they slept out on the back porch just to do it, and it’s nice, dozing off under the stars, but it gets sort of humid out there and there’s creepy bugs, so that’s only for when they needed some air. Steve thinks it’s for the best that they save something like that for special times anyways.

Spending more and more of their time together, Steve realizes he’s officially, one hundred percent, head over heels in love with Billy.

He’s okay with not bringing it up though, he’s not stupid. The first time he’d ever had a crush it was on another boy in the neighborhood, and he’d been promptly smacked across the mouth when he brought it up with his mom. At school, he grew up hearing all kinds of nasty words for people like him, so he knew what it was like out there.

And even though he knew Billy wasn’t like that, he was okay keeping it to himself, just being friends for now. There was no rush, he had the rest of his life ahead of him in sunny California.

~~~~~~~

Except, their forever doesn’t really last as long as either of them would’ve thought.

Halfway through August, only a month before the boys’ sophomore year at school starts, the phone starts ringing every day with calls from Steve’s mother.

She’s wine drunk each time, and begging her sister to let her talk to her son. Margaret usually handled it, telling her to give it up and slamming the receiver back in its holder, but he had answered once when his aunt was out doing errands, and she’d tried to guilt trip him into going back to Hawkins. When he rejected her, the waterworks stopped in an instant, and she’d hung up on him.

For weeks the calls kept coming until they elected to just stop answering them entirely, only picking up the phone if they were expecting someone to contact them. If they missed any important calls that weren’t just Ruth, they figured whoever it was could come to the door or send a letter.

One morning when Steves getting the mail, there’s a bright pink notice sticking out of the box. He doesn’t think anything of it, decides it’s really not his business if his aunt missed a bill or something, so he sets it down on the dining table with the rest of the mail and goes about his day.

But later that night, he’s in the kitchen and he hears her crying from the backyard, side by side in the lawn chairs with Maria just like the very first day he got here, and she’s saying something about her sister sending a letter that they’re going to take him away.

Before she comes back inside, he sneaks into the office where the pink envelope has been moved, and sure as rain, at the top of the paper is the name of his parents’ lawyer, and a threat to have his aunt arrested if she doesn’t comply and send Steve back.

The next morning while she's making breakfast, Margaret calls them on the kitchen phone, thinking if she did it before Steve usually wakes up to try to clear everything up, he wouldn’t have to hear her make her plea to them to do what’s best for her nephew.

But Steve hadn’t caught a wink of sleep the night before, and tiptoes to her bedroom to pick up the receiver there and listen in once he hears her dial the number. He rationalizes it’s just to try to figure out what was going on, nothing to do with the panic slowly rising in his chest.

He really shouldn’t have picked it up though.

Because before he’d heard what was said on the other line, he could still hold onto his denial, he could convince himself that his parents really didn’t have any power over him anymore, but hearing it said allowed, that isn’t the case, and it truly wasn’t just some drunken threat or a way to try to scare them. Somehow they’d actually fought to nullify the papers Margaret got for him, and he would have to go back to Hawkins.

Steve really just, doesn’t know what to do with that information. He lets the phone fall without bothering to hang it up, and that must call his aunt's attention to him because he hears her say “Stevie, honey-“ but he’s working on autopilot, and he’s halfway out the front door already.

He’s in his own world, doesn’t realize how hard he slams the door or that it’s caught the attention of his neighbors. Halfway down the driveway, without any rhyme or reason to where he’s going, he hears Billy call after him.

After the news he’s just got, he doesn’t think he can face him, doesn’t think he’ll be able to hold it together if he sees Billy, but he doesn’t get far before he’s got a hand on each of his shoulders spinning him around. “Woah, hey. What’s goin on Steve?”

“Mind your own, Bills.” Steve tries to shrug his hands off but Billy tightens his grip to avoid that. 

“C’mon, I told you ‘bout all my problems.” 

Steve shoved him off of him. “Just go away man. I don’t need your stupid help.”

“I thought we were friends.” The hurt is apparent in Billy’s voice, in his eyes even more, and Steve feels terrible. 

So he fesses up, gets all passionate and admits, “We are friends! You’re my best friend in the whole world and I love you!” 

“You do?” Billy looked shocked at that, but Steve had bigger things to worry about right now. 

“I do! But now I have to leave because my parents are taking me away, and I’ll never see you again!”

Saying it out loud breaks him. Sets it in that this was everything he could’ve wanted, a cozy house with someone who loved him looking after him, and a best friend in a place where they were safe to try to become more than that. And now his parents were taking that away, dragging him back to the little off the map town where he’d never been able to be himself.

Steve can’t help that he’s full on sobbing, he’s in the midst of another stupid panic attack. Billy puts a hand on his back and walks him back to the porch steps to try to calm him down.

It doesn’t do much good when the tears start down his cheeks too, but it helps a little to have someone there, holding him in their arms and trying to help.

The cruel twist of fate that he was being shown this kindness, this love, because he was being forced to leave it behind for people who never offered him even the slightest hint of affection, that only rubbed salt in the wound, and forced another sob from Steve’s throat.

It was really humid that day, their hair was all frizzed out and sticking to each other’s faces, and they were sticky with sweat where they were holding each other, but they didn’t pull away for anything until the tears stopped.

“What do we do?” Billy finally asks, his voice apprehensive and strained from having been crying. 

“I don’t know.” Steve untangles his arms from around Billy and pulls away. “I just, I really don’t know.” 

“How long do we got?” 

“‘Til the end of the month.” 

“That’s only what like, fifteen days!” He sounds exasperated at first, but his voice softens to vulnerability. “I’m gonna lose you in two weeks.” 

Chasing out any doubt or sadness from his voice to contrast that present in Billy’s, Steve says, “Then we better make every minute count.” 

They both know full well what that means. That, when it came to this crush thing they had been putting off acknowledging under the now false promise of a future together, now was the time to stop pussyfooting around and act on it.

It’s Steve who leans in first, but it’s Billy who closes the gap.

The kiss isn’t the greatest, their noses bump a few times too many until Billy pulls away altogether to realign them, but it’s okay, as far as first kisses go. It does it’s job in making him feel less filled with dread and a little more full of love.

Even in such a short amount of time, they want to do this the right way. Maybe it won’t necessarily be at their own pace, but they want this to count for something before they’re on opposite sides of the country. 

From more kisses like that one to official dates at Rita’s, all those small moments of a first true love that should’ve been beyond exciting for kids their age become bittersweet, because they’re doing it all with the knowledge that they’ll be separated soon.

Steve wishes he would’ve known this would be happening so he could go back and seize every wasted opportunity, make a thousand more memories with Billy that could hold onto when he was alone in Hawkins, but they don’t have that chance anymore.  
  
They don’t have the time to take it slow the way they want to either. Really, it’s a form of self torture, to have gotten that short glimpse of each others affection before they would have to be apart, because it only left them both wanting more. 

They ultimately decide, with lots of consideration and promises to each other to be true, not to break up. For now, those two weeks before he had to leave would be there to cherish for the next three years until Steve turned 18.  
  


~~~~~~~

Leaving California just a few months after he got there is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do. It was a lot easier to say in theory that they’d be alright, that it wasn’t forever, or whatever other comforts they could come up with than to actually do it.

To get in the car and have his aunt drive him to the airport with no intentions of coming with him, that was virtually impossible. 

Margaret sort of plans on the fact that it’s going to take him a while to be able to leave, so she packs his stuff the night before while he sleeps over at Billy’s, leaving out a few things of his in hopes it would inspire him to come back home when he was free to do so. She wakes him up before the sun the day of in case there’s anything he wants to do before he has to go, but his mind goes straight to Billy.

The plane for Indianapolis isn’t supposed to leave until six that night, but she tries to start coaxing him away as soon as she can. A clean break is always easier. 

As his aunt, she’s appalled to see what his family is putting him through, but her hands are tied by the law. For now, she has to stay strong for him and get him back to Hawkins before anything worse can happen.

Still, when she finally gets Steve outside and on his way into the car, watching him say goodbye to Billy is something even she can barely handle. 

They seemed like they were going to be able to do it just fine, but then Billy’s composure broke down. He’d been doing okay, but the moment the tears started, Steve wouldn’t let him go.   
  
He was trying to say anything comforting he could, from assurances he’d be back to promises of true and infinite love, he tries so hard to get Billy to feel better that he himself cracks.   
  
He pulls Billy into a hug as close as two people can get, and presses kisses to his hair, muttering things for only the other boy to hear. 

Something he says earns him a snotty giggle, which is a good sign, but they all know their hearts will break again once they’re actually gone. 

And Margaret hates to have to do it, but the plane isn’t going to wait for young love, and she steps forward and puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Honey, we have to get going.”

If it were even possible, Steve squeezes Billy even tighter in his arms, and Margaret worries briefly about if they’re going to have to physically separate them, but Steve pulls away when he’s ready, keeping one hand on Billy’s back and bringing the other up to the side of his face.

What he says then is unheard by anyone but Billy, who can no longer muster up the ability to speak, only able to produce more sniffles and sobs, and who nods in some sort of silent agreement Steve understands perfectly.

Taking Billys hand in his own, Steve presses something into the palm. It’s a promise ring, its twin already on display on Steve’s left middle finger.   
  
He pulls away from him with that promise that he’ll be back, that he’ll be his forever, and tells him he loves him one more time, and he gets in the car. 

Margaret says a quick goodbye of her own, and hurries to get the car started before Steve can change his mind.

All the way down the road, she can see him watching them in the mirror. He watches Billy’s mom wrap her arms around her son from behind, and watches as Billy barely keeps himself standing.   
  
He stifles a sob of his own in the passenger seat, and Margaret puts a hand on his shoulder, not knowing what else she can do for her nephew. 

Half an hour later, they’re back to square one, Steve by himself on a plane, Margo lonely and worried for her dear nephew, and poor Billy, in a state of emotional distress worse than he’d seen one since he’d escaped his abusive upbringing. 

~~~~~~~

Steve meant what he said. They were promised, and though all the girls who used to be his friends before he left were all over him now, the time he spent in California apparently making him the number one desirable at Hawkins High, he never paid them any mind.

It made Tommy nuts to see him turn down all the offers he got, seeing him stay home away from all the coolest parties, an opportunity he would have at one point jumped on to avoid his parents, and crumpling up phone numbers he used to collect on the spot, but Steve knew his heart belonged to Billy.

For that, he sort of becomes unpopular, you’re not supposed to be committed to one person so young when, especially not when you’re rich and popular, so he slowly fades out of the spotlight while his friends do the opposite, rising in status to the top dogs as they get older.

He prefers it that way, because who he was before Cali isn't who he is now. After Billy, that’s just not his scene anymore.

Carol catches on, corners him in the hall and tells him he’s wasting his time on some chick 2,000 miles away’ when there were plenty of eligible bachelorettes in Hawkins, which he thinks might’ve doubled as a hint that she wanted him to ask her out before Tommy did, but he doesn’t let it bother him.

Because he’s saving up. As soon as he could he got a job bussing tables at Benny’s so he would have enough to leave the very moment it became legal. After what happened with his aunt, it was decided that he wasn’t legally allowed to emancipate himself, he checked on that the same day he touched down in Indiana, so he’d have to wait a while.

Benny knows what happened when he left, it seemed like everyone in Hawkins did, so he lets Steve keep the cash he makes in a safe in the back room so his parents can’t get their hands on it. He appreciates that more than anything, because it makes his goal all the more reachable.

There’s no doubt in his mind that he’ll be ready when the time comes, and that Billy will be too.

They talk on the phone every single night, sometimes only for a few minutes if they’re busy, other times for hours and hours until Steve fell asleep, or his parents yelled at him for still being up. He would always use the phone in his bedroom when his parents were home so they wouldn’t bother him, but he could sometimes hear Maria in the background on Billy’s end. He missed her too.

They can’t talk as freely as they want to, there are no I love you’s or discussions of what they both know, or at least both hope is going to happen once this all over, not when there’s a chance one of Steve’s parents could be listening, but the sentiment is there. It’s not really like it needs to be said anyways.

As much as he loves getting to talk to Billy, Steve’s heart breaks everytime he picks up. The boy he fell in love with was growing up on the other end of the line, and he didn’t get to be there. They were so ready to spend their lives together, only for that to be ripped away.

He tries to imagine what Billy looks like now that he’s older, Billy tells him that he’d let his hair grow out longer, just down to his shoulders, that he got his ears pierced and dressed like a punk these days. Steve does the same, tells him about how he’s paler than ever without the California sun, how he’s just as lanky as he used to be. It’s comforting and devastating to him at the same time.

But it’s good enough what they do have, despite the distance, because he still loves Billy, falls a little more in love every day that he isn’t with him. It gives him something to look forward to, keeps him working hard at everything he does just to get back to that boy someday.

~~~~~~~

Those last few years of high school and shifts at the diner, of friends trying to peer pressure him and his parents never giving up trying to force him into the role of their dream son despite everything, are next to impossible. But Steve gets it done.

In May of 1985 he graduates, a goal he fought hard to achieve to ensure there was nothing keeping him tied to Hawkins for a moment longer than he needed to be, and with a not so solemn farewell to the town that did nothing but hold him back, he left.

It feels a little unceremonious, to just collect all his money and pack the rest of his belongings, but he does it, hops on a plane two days after the end of high school, leaving behind nothing but a note to his parents, and he’s free.

He decides not to call ahead so it will be a surprise when he shows up back at the duplex. The old Steve might’ve worried that not giving them a warning would get him in trouble, or maybe he would have been afraid to stumble onto something being hidden behind his back, but he is distinctly not the old Steve anymore.

The first time he’d gone to California, he’d been so timid. He was pretty sure he remembered crying alone on the plane on the way up, and he knows for a fact that if it hadn’t been for Billy, he probably never would’ve adjusted. This time though, it’s the total opposite. No heavy heart over leaving behind his childhood home, no fear that his aunt wouldn’t like him or that he’d never fit in as part of the family. No doubt about it, this was where he belonged.

~~~~~~~~

A cab drops Steve off right outside of the pale yellow house, and he has to take a minute to just appreciate it in all of its nostalgic glory before he can walk up to it. This was it, everything was within his reach, and nobody could ever take it away again without his permission.

He wheels his bags behind himself up the porch steps, trying to be as quiet as he can, and knocks on the right side door, he thinks it's the better idea to see his aunt first.

He can hear from inside start saying, “I already told you Mrs. Green, your cat isn’t in our yard- oh my god.” When the door opens and she sees that it isn’t the neighbor lady asking about her long gone cat, her eyes go wide and she covers her mouth with her hands.

She hugs him first for a long time, then quickly ushers him inside. “Stevie, baby, why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise.” 

“Are you here to stay?” She sounds hopeful, but doubtful at the same time, so she hardly waits for his response of “Yeah.” before squishing him in another hug. 

“Oh, I thought I’d never see you again. I thought they’d lock you down, or- or, change your mind somehow.”

He shrugged, leaning against the wall without anything else to do. “Turns out it was only ever about saving face. It was never about me.”

“Thank god you're out of there now.” It’s been a few years since she’d seen him, and she has to stand up on her toes to press a kiss to his forehead like she used to before he was grown, but she does it now anyways. “How did we get so lucky with you?”

“Your room is still yours, you can put the rest of your things in there.” She tells him, but she must sense his hesitation, that voice in the back of his head telling him he’s got something better to do now that he’s here.

That same knowing smile she’d worn those few years ago when he’d told her what he felt appears again now, just as warm as before. “He misses you too, you know. Don’t tell him I was the one to tell you, but he works at Rita’s because it reminds him of you.”

“Billy said that?” 

“We can all guess it. The poor dear was devastated after you were gone.” 

Steve’s heart starts to pick up the place at just the mention of Billy. “Is he here?” 

“The car out on the street there is his, so he should be home.” He feels a little guilty, leaving his aunt already without even settling in, but he needs to see Billy again. She sees the furrow in his brow over the conflict and gives him another hug, whispering to him, “Go get him, Stevie.”

  
After three years of there 2,000miles long distance, all that’s keeping him from reuniting with his heart is a door, but he finds himself frozen in place. His pulse is racing a thousand miles a minute, he feels just like his fifteen year old self, head over heels in love for the first time and scared out of his mind about it. His breath hitches, and he knocks.

Steve feels like the earth gives way under him when the door opens and it’s Billy. Billy, but about five inches taller, with muscle where there he used to be skin and bones. He’s still pretty like he always was, his eyes still a striking shade of blue and framed by perfect long lashes. He has a mustache now, which is something Steve would never have imagined on his face, but it suits him, goes well with the long hair. If Steve wasn’t already in love with him, he might’ve just fallen.

Once the initial shock of not seeing his boyfriend for three years wears off, Steve speaks first, saying the same thing he said the first time they met, just to watch it bring tears to Billy’s eyes. “Hi, my name is Steve Harrington. I’m your new neighbor.”

He even holds out a hand to shake, which Billy takes this time, wrapping his hand around Steve’s wrist to pull him through the door frame into a long overdue embrace. He melts into the hug, slinging his own arms up around Billy’s shoulders and holding on tight.

This time, he’s never letting go.


End file.
